The WAH, 12/21/08 - Community Team Conundrum

[PhoenixRed]

Starting today, in our new effort to bring more content to Warhammer Alliance, we're beginning a new biweekly opinion piece - the Warhammer Alliance Hotplate, or WAH for short (Warhammer Alliance - now with more convenient acronyms for your snarky comments) :). Previous pieces like the WHA Waaagh sought to address pain points in the community, and we continue this tradition with the WAH, now that release is behind us.

The point of the WAH is to highlight "elephant in the room" topics in the community. These are topics which may be discussed in the community that may not be getting the attention or discussion needed from developers or from other players. They may also be topics that aren't discussed at all, which may have merit in highlighting. Regardless of what they are, we want the WAH to be community-driven, so if you have suggestions for a topic that you think deserves time on the hotplate and isn't being addressed, feel free to send a PM my way or reply in the thread for the current WAH article.

With that introduction out of the way, let's put the first item on the Warhammer Alliance Hotplate - the Community Team.

[PhoenixRed]

Community Team Conundrum

If there's one thing that's important to developers building a good rapport with the players, it's good community management. There's a certain kind of perception that floats around that game developers, whether they are worshipped or villified, are encased in an ivory tower, only coming forth from the great, pristine halls of their offices to do hype-worthy interviews and answer Q&A's for fans.

That's where community management comes in. A traditional community manager is the conduit through which developers pass their information and updates and also a way for players to communicate to the developers about what happens to annoy them at any given time. When you have a good community manager, you have someone who is well known by the players as the first point of contact (or first to burn at the stake) and by the developers as their window into how the players are perceiving their vision.

With no official forums to speak of as of this writing, Mythic has honed community management into more than just a way of connecting with the players, but rather as a necessary method of creating a pathway for feedback. Dark Age of Camelot and Mythic's presence on unofficial forums and fansites showed that Mythic could indeed create a way for players to submit feedback to a real, breathing person instead of a very much non-breathing feedback form.

With the model proven to be workable, WAR, with a likely larger, more demanding playerbase than DAoC will ever see, would make community management and the team associated with it essential to its success.

So why is it that we don't really see them being used to the fullest?

The Mythic/GOA community team is, in my very non-expert, armchair quarterbacking opinion, one of the most underused I've ever seen. Right now, I believe we have James, Missy, Andy, Jess, and over them, Robert Mull. GOA has Nic and Magnus, along with other reps on other sites such as Sterntaler, overseen by David Petit. The team apparently is growing, yet I have no idea why they have been relegated to tasks you'd normally see from front line tech support or customer service representatives. Look at any of the community posts from the Mythic/GOA community reps these days and they are nothing more than Herald posts, acknowledgments of bug fixes, the occasional Grab Bag Q&A, and low level questions that are "safe" and easy to answer.

This is a shame, because while I am certain that the community team is working hard, and not just sitting around twiddling their thumbs, they could be doing so much more with us, the players. They could be answering queries for interviews, doing more Q&A's, creating hot topic threads to gather feedback from players. They could be acknowledging more feedback threads that is constructive and making sure it is passed back and forth up and down the chain of communication. They could be answering questions from pages-long threads in various forums regarding developer philosophy and decisions regarding design. But as it stands now, they aren't, and if they are, it isn't being done enough to garner the respect they need from the playerbase. It would be great if we could find out more about what the Community Team does besides what we see them do, but even then, it would be nice to see them connecting with our community more on the outside, whether that is here, at Vault, or whereever else they currently choose to post and read.

Part of this might be the result of someone like Mark Jacobs doing most of the posting. When the VP GM of the company is the one answering the questions, doing the interaction with the community, and otherwise getting their hands dirty, no one wants to deal with an employee further down on the food chain. Players figure if they can get to Mark, they get to the top of Mythic, a perception fueled by Mark's constant posting, presence, and community involvement. Now, don't get me wrong - I respect Mark. Mythic's track record speaks of the business acumen Mark has in order to lead a company towards two successful projects.

That being said, I think he's underutilizing his resources and putting his own time into something that is easily delegated to the community team, and I'm not sure why. By allowing the community team to answer questions, post updates, and generally be the first line of defense to developers, he's not only freeing himself up for other endeavors but also empowering his employees, the team supposedly dedicated to community interaction, with, well, actually working with the community. I appreciate Mark taking the time to post as much as he does, but he really needs to step back and let his teams handle the inevitable mess that forums, even this one, sometimes become.

If there's an issue players have brought up here, or in other places, it's that Mythic's current level of communication regarding issues, acknowledgment of problems and bugs, and answering constructive criticism and questions is not at a satisfactory level, and them saying "we're listening", while true, is dulled by the fact that they aren't empowered to use their voice more. Mark can't do all of the work himself, and neither can the other few developers doing the posting in the midst of the other things they have to do. The community team is no doubt full of talented individuals with experience dealing with players - at least two of them come from MMO's working with the community. All I'm saying is - use them more, and put them at the frontlines with the kid gloves off so they can be utilized properly as a solid community resource for players to respect and give feedback to, not just another CSR.